He would sit down where he was and smoke, he said, and then attempt that last toilsome league.
As it happened, he could not find the tobacco, and having a hazy recollection of laying it on the ground the last time he filled his pipe, he shook his aching shoulders and trudged on.

The loss of the tobacco decided him, and with a malediction on Alton he made for Horton's.

It was also a fateful decision with far-reaching results he made just then.

Supper had long been cleared away when he entered the general room of the hotel, and then stopped a moment with his hand on the door, for the one man who sat under the big lamp was the last person he desired to meet.

He had, however, some papers spread out in front of him, and Damer decided to slip away quietly, but as he moved the blankets on his shoulders struck the door, which rattled, and the man looked up sharply.